The biggest Feast of the Church year, the epicenter event of our faith – Easter. I wondered if it was ever going to get here! Lent is like that sometimes, okay, always. The end of Lent approaches. The time between Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil requires a colossal liturgical mood change. While the change happens overnight, it is important to live in the present moment. I have to work hard to focus and keep my mind on today and now; don’t think about tomorrow, stay where I am today. That can be a real challenge, but the more I observe Lent and the day at hand these last days, the more joy-filled and poignant Easter becomes. I wonder how Our Blessed Mother didn’t implode and then explode between the sorrow of the cross and the joy of the Resurrection. Maybe she did, that’s why the Spirit left us little news of her those three days and immediately following. He put her back together, after the explosion if there was one, that is certain. Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, upon whose writings The Passion of the Christ movie is based, says that Jesus “stayed with her a very long time as her sorrow had been so deep.”

Titanic shifts like this one are mirrored in life. The ultimate one, I think, will be at the point of death, please God. May it mirror Jesus’ Resurrection, not so much in the passion – if He will in His mercy grant us a bye there – but in the glory of heaven. May we wake up one day on the other side to see His Glory in ways we cannot imagine!

But hush, it is not time yet to look at His glory; rather be in the now. Be where your hands are. Receive the grace of the present moment. For a few ways to help your kids stay in the days, our Sisters in the primary grades have found a website with a few ideas at http://eyesonheaven.net/good-friday-activities/ . The Church’s liturgies are obviously a great way to live these days.

Sometimes kids need a little something else to help. When they were kids, the Dunavan Sisters (Sister Mary Fidelis and Sister Mary Agnes) used to have to go pick up rocks for a while on Good Friday. If you don’t have a place with rocks, maybe your child could descend into the tomb and clean out or off the floor of their closet. The Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy are also beautiful devotions.

I’m praying that our hearts may receive well the graces of the sacred time of today. I need to remember the door of my heart opens only from the inside. Yours, too?